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SPRINGFIELD, Ohio—That great American institution called “The Simpsons” has a running joke about where exactly in America the fictitious family’s town, Springfield, is located. Every time the state’s name is about to be revealed, something interrupts the speaker. And viewers never find out.
The bit works precisely because there are so many places called Springfield in America. With its Anytown USA vibe, it could be anywhere in America’s heartland. A place reflective of the town’s unique foibles, failures and triumphs as well as developments far beyond it.
In real life, we’ve been watching very real developments unfold in Springfield, Ohio, that are far from funny. However, the story behind them is very much part of a huge, familiar trend across America: the arrival of new mostly Black and Brown immigrants in majority white small towns and larger diverse cities alike that are not equipped to handle the influx. The story goes like this: A relatively small, dying town gets newcomers who breathe new life into it and inadvertently awaken dormant racial animus. Cue the growing pains of infrastructure strains, cultural differences and the rumor mill as supporting characters.
In this Springfield, we have Haitians as the labor force and the white supremacists, most of them from outside of town, as the main characters. For the growing pains’ role, we have a failure of government to proactively plan for the immigrants’ impact at the state, county and municipality levels – leaving local officials ill-equipped to absorb the influx. Few socio-cultural interactions and the proliferation of racist anti-immigrant tropes act as secondary characters. Together, the trio have placed people’s lives and livelihoods at risk, triggering both anguish and activism to stand up for Haitians.
People are hostile to immigrants in small towns, or even in cities, because there tends to be fewer Black people, according to Dr. Sharon Wright Austin, a University of Florida professor of African American studies. Many of the white residents also tend to be less educated, more conservative and racist people people who don’t want their communities to become more diverse.
“It’s not just your group,” Wright Austin said. “This is typical of the way that immigrants of color generally [are treated], but especially Black immigrants and Haitian immigrants…Scapegoating is the norm.”
The question now is whether Springfield can still keep winning and “Move Forward,” as the city slogan proclaims. Or, will white supremacy — that fixture of land of freedom for so long — finally tear apart the union? The answer may depend on what American voters, including the estimated 753,000 Haitian American voters mobilizing across the U.S., choose to do in November. Very few issues show as starkly the choice for the future of America.
“This is a political game,” said Florida House Rep. Dotie Joseph said during the same virtual conversation. “They like the memes. They like this stuff because as long as you’re talking about that, you’re not talking about the ways the same issues impacting the Haitian community [in Springfield] are impacting the non-Haitian community, the non-immigrant community all over this country.”
There’s no denying the facts. After years of economic decline, immigrants helped put Springfield back in the green. In just a few years, the new arrivals – both Haitians and others from Latin America, residents say – revived the town’s business in all sectors, unanimously.
“The growth in our workforce population has supported the expansion of local business, contributing to the stabilization of our local economy,” City Manager Bryan Heck said in a video announcement shortly after last week’s U.S. presidential debate. “The [immigrant influx] challenges are only due to the pace of the change, not to rumors.”
Like other cities around the country, Springfield was left to handle the societal and cultural changes on its own. A gross miscalculation, seeing as that failure snowballed into hatred against the immigrant community – with the Haitians, the local NAACP has said, blamed the most.
Why didn’t this happen? New labor sources have always been the bloodline of America, according to data in this Washington Post piece about why America has tried, yet failed, to stay white. Since its founding, both forced and voluntary migration – indentured servitude, chattel slavery, continuous immigration – Black and Brown hands have built this country. That’s a major factor in studies that find the U.S. will become a minority-majority country in about 20 years. Expectedly, right-wingers have used such findings to push distorted white replacement theories.
Yet, our politicians have fallen into the habit of debating who gets to come into this country or gets locked out. In general, few national leaders prioritize what happens once a newcomer is allowed in, as the predicament of places — from Springfield to New York City — illustrates.
People don’t just disappear into an amorphous void once they are granted legal entry. They go into a house or apartment in their pursuit of lavi miyò, Creole for “a better life.” They seek – often by mandate – health services before they can work. They enroll children in school or take courses themselves. They establish churches or social groups, often Flag Day parades. They learn to deal with their bosses and neighbors, often grappling with new expectations to speak, dress, eat, pray or be.
That’s when the day-to-day strains turn to tensions to cultural eruptions.
Ideally, all immigration policies should come with a budget for an education and assimilation support effort. Everyone whose everyday routines and interactions will be different should be informed or served. Socialization, if you will. It’s been done for Ukrainian and Afghani refugees, via groups like the nonprofit Welcome.us. It looks like it may have added Haitians as well. In Indianapolis, as we’ve reported, a City Hall liaison and neighborhood advocates have helped folks settle. Even in Columbus, the much larger city about 45 miles northeast, the mayor launched a new Americans leadership program during the pandemic.
In Springfield, that model is non-existent. Fear and resentment stepped in, shooting through the community – which encompasses the surrounding towns. It trumped any fear seen even in larger cities nearby, triggering some people to actually act on their hatred. One man, Izaye Eubanks, was convicted of a hate crime in 2023 for beating up Haitians on their way to send money to Haiti. But residents say they’ve faced many more, insidious attacks that didn’t get reported.
The killing of Aiden Clark, 11, when a Haitian man, Hermanio Joseph, crashed with his school bus, only added kindle to the resentment. Joseph had been driving without a license and is now in prison.
Another reason for the ongoing, sustained resentment?
“The Haitians were everywhere in Springfield – north, south, east west, all over,” said Vilès Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield. “We don’t have one specific area. We’re everywhere.”
That “in your face” presence is unlike places in traditional immigrant enclaves – where in the past, newcomers might live within a community that speaks the same language while they settle in before moving on. Being close to or within larger Black neighborhoods, with African Americans or Caribbean immigrants, also helped build kinship, support and some level of solidarity. That’s why places like Flatbush, North Miami and Boston, for example, helped folks survive physical attacks in the old days.
These days, however, because of digital spaces, the attacks are mental and emotional long before they might spew into physical assaults like the Western Union beatings. And, it’s not just Black versus white. Much of the anti-immigrant sentiment also comes from some African Americans for a host of reasons, including immigrants taking jobs that would otherwise go to them.
That hate crime convict, for one, had some association with American Descendants of American Slaves, a group that believes only those Black folks should benefit from the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, including programs such as affirmative action. These Foundational Black Americans, as the call themselves, have been having a moment with their #FBA movement right around the time Trump started declaring that “the Blacks” love him and he released his $399 golden sneakers to raise campaign funds.
Memes and critiques aside, the sobering reality is that the rhetoric puts people’s civil rights and lives at risk. To help, Gov. of Ohio, Mike Dewine has since pledged troopers and $2.5 million to help ease the strain on services.
In the long run, however, it’s the actions of regular Black, brown and white residents coming together to stand with the Haitians that will have the biggest impact. Actions such as invitations to join church services and to patronize Haitians businesses seen around town all weekend.
The simple truth is that America is browning. There’s no turning back the clock or going back to any country. More Haitians seem to be realizing that earlier on in their journey in America than their predecessors have. These new folks seem very motivated to organize and thrive, and their efforts – nascent as they are – put certain older Haitian enclaves to shame in certain respects.
As Haitian Americans, we also should have built programs to assist newcomers in any new community, many have said. Seeing the influx should have prompted the community’s leaders to push for a more comprehensive plan for assimilation. “Someone” should have been educating both the longtime residents and newcomers, various community members have told us. Basics such as how the community is set up or functions, do’s and don’ts and what’s legal, or illegal to do. But no one did that.
This past week, many Haitians issued statements pou bay Trump repons, Creole for “clap back at Trump” basically. There is an anti-Trump, pro-Haitian rally in Long Island Wednesday. Whether the moral outrage turns into sustained solidarity remains to be seen.
There is hope yet. If, that is, Haitian Americans across generations and geographies can turn this current of moral outrage into proactive measures to protect immigrants’ civil rights. In Indiana last year, Haitians were able to sue for the right to have state ID cards. That took education, alliances with other expert groups and guts. People who are graduating leadership training programs – from Miami to Columbus to New York – can help implement a framework with anti-Haitian sentiment as a priority.
Today, the Springfield Haitians’ impact is mostly on the economy. Tomorrow, these same Haitians will be voting once they are eligible, just as waves of Haitians have done over time.
“Haitians have a tendency to vote at high rates,” Wright Austin said. “There’s not enough respect for Haitian people, [but] politicians know if you really want to win an election, you to appeal to Haitians. ”
The next 50 days or so are critical to watch for signs of leaders and campaigns across levels reaching out to Haitian voters. If they are activated and end up rejecting MAGA candidates all up and down their ballots,well what could be a better repons than that to Trump and his kind?
This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.
The post Haitians in Springfield: A tale of Black immigration in ‘Anytown USA’ appeared first on The Haitian Times.
